The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

... the body is also directly involved in a political field, power relations hold upon it, they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs. 1 In 1988, a number of university students at the Faculty of Fine Art and Design, Bandung Institute of Technology (1TB) formed a group they called Sumber Waras (source of sense).The purpose in forming the group was to experiment with elements of movement, sound and vision and apply these elements to performance. The underlying aim is to broaden the limited range of artistic expression in performance by incorporating media such as painting, ceramics, sculpture and graphics. The inclusion within the fine arts of experiments in elements of movement and sound represents the birth of a new idiom in the practice of contemporary art in Indonesia, and in Bandung in particular. Marintan Sirait is an artist who intensively explores elements of body movement, sound and vision. At present, especially for contemporary artists in Bandung, this new idiom is most often described as visual art performance, despite the fact that it is often simplified to, or equated with, performance art. Visual art performance at the very least reminds us that this new trend has its origins in the visual arts and represents the effort to expand artists' modes of aesthetic expression, which have previously been characterised only by visual elements (in two or three dimensions). The term visual art performance is capable of pointing to certain aspects of the reformation of spirit in the context of contemporary art as it is practised in Indonesia. It is precisely this capability which is most often forgotten when the term is simplified to performance art, an art form whose history locates it within the tradition of modern Western art. The fundamental concept expressed by Marintan Sirait in her work Membangun rumah (Building a house) springs from her collaborative experiments with dancer Marjie Suanda.This concept has been further enriched through experiments with the Sumber Waras group at the 1TB Faculty of Fine Arts. The work has been performed in Jakarta, Solo and Yogyakarta. For Marintan Sirait, the work is a process and, at the same time, a collaboration. The staging of Membangun rumah (Building a house) at the locations mentioned above involved different dancers, musicians and the presence of a scenographer. It is precisely through this type of collaboration that the process element of Marintan Sirait's work is maintained.The nature of process in this work means that a fixed form for the ending of the performance is not especially targeted, even though the fundamental concept remains constant. This is expressed through the narrative, which relates how the spirit of life continues to grow and develop while striving to free the self from alienation. The work is installation art that incorporates performance and elements of nature: earth, fire and ash, as well as fluorescent lighting and sheets of newspaper. The work can tell us as much about physical power as about development in nature; it tells the story of the creative cycle of the universe: growth, development and destruction. In contrast, outside powers are represented by the intervention of fluorescent lighting and newspapers. Body movements are performed slowly and intensely, as if careful movement will assist in locating gaps through which the body might flow, just as the roots of a tree seek to slowly spread themselves out. We may well ask whether the body moves in order to fight against outside constrictions, or simply to identify the constrictions. We may also ask whether the two are associated in the search for identity that originates in a willingness to participate in dialogue, and a willingness for the body and the world around us to get to know each other. In the 1995 text introducing her work, Marintan Sirait writes about the elements of this dialogue, 'in building this house, the process evolved to define the space within the cracks, neither flowing with the raging river, nor sitting in silence'. This is the artist's response to the critical question which she herself has asked, 'alienated body, alienated self, alienated feelings, the owner said that changes are good for you, the occupant replied, do you know who I am'? 2 Recently, performance and installation art have become the idiom of art most often practised by contemporary artists in the Asia-Pacific region. And, it appears that social change-in this case, modernisation, which in the Asian region is frequently seen as a manifestation of Westernisation -is considered to play a vital role. Through its exploration of body movement in the staged performance, Membangun rumah (Building a house) operates as a critical narrative about alienation in a modern social setting in which the body is involved in the game of power relations, just as Foucault has suggested. It is in this context that we are able to understand MarintaA's question: 'Is this body really our body'? 3 Hou Hanru, in commenting on the recent development of performance art in China, explains that the exploration of the body in performance art is capable of directly expressing the condition in which peoJ'.)le are alienated-culturally, politically, and morally-during periods of social upheaval in China. 4 This can also be seen as a critical reaction to a characteristic of the present modernisation occurring in the Asia-Pacific region; namely, the reinforcement of a discourse in whi_ch the body is seen as a machine that must be supervised and trained to move and to function. Reductionist views present the body as a workhorse or a window display, a place for attaching consumer goods. Your Body, Your Home Lives and works in Bandung, Indonesia Membangun rumah (Building ahouse) 1995 Installation at Cemeti Gallery, Yogyakarta The trend that arises is absolute isolation of body, soul and mind. The reality that the body is the home of the soul is forgotten. Marintan Sirait, a mother of two children (Gita, aged seven and Bintang, aged four) clearly understands the true meaning of the body as the home of the soul. In an Indonesian social setting still coloured by a system which is both patriarchal and feudal, the body-particularly the female body-can present a lengthy narrative indeed on alienation. Enin Supriyanto, Writer,Jakarta,Indonesia 1 Michel Foucault, Discipline andPunish:The Birth of the Prison, trans. A. Sheridan, Pantheon, New York, 1977. 2 Mirantan Sirait, Building aHouse lintroductorytext],1995. 3 Sirait. 4 Hou Hanru, 'Bey.and the cynical. China avant-garde in the 1990s', Artand AsiaPacific, vol.3, no.1, 1996,p.44. A RT I s T s : sou TH AN o sou TH . 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